Anaerobic fermentation of food waste to connect fork to farm and store carbon in soils

乳酸发酵是一种由特定微生物群体使用的厌氧过程，将碳水化合物分解为糖并产生有机酸作为副产品。在亚洲，食物垃圾在家庭中发酵是很常见的，这个过程被称为“bokashi”。Bokashi生产一种高质量、营养丰富的有机肥料，有可能提高土壤肥力和土壤中储存的碳量。然而，bokashi在英国并不常见。英国的大部分食物垃圾都经过厌氧消化，用于沼气生产。厌氧消化的产物是一种农民不喜欢的低质量有机肥料，因此沼气设施很难找到愿意接受厌氧消化作为土壤改良剂的农民。该项目将探索和试验使用乳酸发酵(Bokashi)作为英国食物垃圾厌氧消化的替代方法。你将把雷丁大学的怀特奈茨校区作为一个“生活实验室”，绘制校园内的食物景观地图，以了解不同地点(如餐饮店、宿舍、办公室和教室)产生的食物浪费的类型。您将使用台式生物反应器来量化传统好氧堆肥、厌氧消化和乳酸发酵过程中的排放，并调查食物垃圾的组成如何影响这些过程。然后，你将在白骑士校园建立一个试点设施，使用校园产生的食物垃圾来试验Bokashi，并使用产生的有机肥料在大学拥有的农田上进行田间试验。田间试验将使你能够确定食物垃圾中碳在土壤环境中的去向，并量化其对土壤长期碳储存的贡献。

Lactic acid fermentation is an anaerobic process used by specific groups of microorganisms to break down carbohydrates into sugars and produce organic acids as a byproduct. Fermentation of food waste within households is commonplace in Asia where the process is referred to as 'Bokashi'. Bokashi produces a high-quality nutrient-rich organic fertiliser that has the potential to increase soil fertility and the amount of carbon stored in soils. However, Bokashi is not common in the UK. The majority of UK food waste is anaerobically digested for biogas production. The product of anaerobic digestion (anaerobic digestate) is a low-quality organic fertiliser that is not desirable to farmers, and so biogas facilities struggle to find farmers willing to accept anaerobic digestate as a soil amendment. This project will explore and trial the use of lactic acid fermentation (Bokashi) as an alternative to anaerobic digestion of UK food waste. You will use the University of Reading Whiteknights campus as a 'living lab' and map the foodscapes across campus to understand the types of food waste produced in different locations (e.g. catering outlets, halls of residence, offices, and classrooms). You will use benchtop-scale bioreactors to quantify emissions during traditional aerobic composting, anaerobic digestion, and lactic acid fermentation and investigate how the composition of the food waste affects these processes. You will then setup a pilot facility on Whiteknights campus to trial Bokashi using food waste generated on campus and use the resulting organic fertilizer to setup a field experiment on farmland owned by the University. The field experiment will enable you to determine the fate of carbon from the food waste in the soil environment and quantify its contribution towards long term soil carbon storage.